“You’ve already apologized.”
Rueful, I shake my head. “I know. I know. But I should have told you sooner. The world thought you did it and I never corrected the assumption.”
“You would have been dead,” he replies stiffly. “Correcting the world would have done nothing but put a mark on your head.”
“Which has happened, anyway.”
Saxon falls silent as he props open the door to the building and releases my hand so I can pass him. I go willingly, only pausing once I’m inside.
Dark-paneled walls.
Slate flooring.
I turn in a semi-circle. “You’ve clearly done some restoration work in here. It’s not at all what I expected.”
“It’s where we work.” Saxon’s hand claims its spot at the base of my spine. “Our headquarters.”
Curious, I slant a look at him. “Are you admitting that you aren’t just a pub owner? That you’re actually as Josie said—a secret agent or something?”
He meets my stare with no hint of hesitation. “Surprise,” he says on a husky rumble, and a chill skates down my spine. “You wondered about the car and the houses and the security system at the Stepney place . . . Josie wasn’t wrong.”
“And you work together with your brothers?”
“For better or worse.”
“Interesting.” I continue down the short hall, listening for Saxon’s footsteps and realizing that he’s so light on his feet that his stride barely makes a sound. “What did you want to show me?”
“It’s right down here.”
He motions for me to turn right when the hallway ends, and I slow, just a little, to trail his heels and survey the space around me. More dark walls and dark, polished floors and it’s as though I’ve been thrust inside a maze. Had there not been any light from the diamond-paned windows lining the left side of the hall, I would be completely lost.
I watch Saxon’s broad shoulders as he stops and waits for me to catch up. When I do, he taps his fingers on a fancy-looking panel, and shock riots through me when I realize that we’re actually standing before a door. A glass door.
My jaw falls open. “Is that . . . is that a—”
“An ally to the queen,” he answers, his voice completely impassive. “His name is Alfie Barker.”
I stare, open-mouthed, at the man huddled in the corner of the room. His clothes are bloodied, his stare blank, and I barely manage to choke back a gasp. My fingers graze the door, the glass cool to the touch. “He can’t see us.”
It’s not a question, and Saxon doesn’t treat it as such. “A one-sided mirror. We can see in but he can’t see us. He can’t hear us, either, unless I want him to.”
Which I don’t.
Saxon doesn’t say the words out loud, but I hear them, nonetheless.
Something that feels acutely like discomfort swirls in the pit of my stomach. I drop my hand back to my side. Rub my fingers along my hip, hoping to erase the bite of cold from the door. Loyalist or not, that man—Alfie Barker—looks . . . broken.
“You’ve beaten him.”
Saxon’s answering pause lasts so long that I look up at him. Only then do I realize he was waiting for eye contact. Slowly, softly, he confesses, “I told you that I have no heart, Isla.”
I swallow, hard. “But you have choices. You could choose to treat him kindly instead of—instead of—” I wave my hand at the door, to the man ensconced inside who looks like he’s been to hell and back.
The wave is all I can manage, and Saxon catches my hand in his. “You had a choice, too. With the king.”
“I did.” Lifting my chin, I add, “And maybe I made the wrong one but, in that moment, it felt right. It felt like the only option.”
“Then maybe you can see that I feel the same with Barker.” A tick appears in his jaw. “I had no choice. I’ve never had a choice. That was decided for me a hundred years ago, and it’s either family or—fuck.”
A hundred years ago? Is his secret organization with his brothers truly that old? A hundred years ago, life in Britain was normal. Unmarked by domestic unrest. But knowing what I do now—about my parents and this world that keeps so many secrets—I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s always been a group like the Priests who have wanted the royal family stripped of their crown.
Wanting to comfort him, and with my back to the cell imprisoning the queen’s ally, I intertwine our fingers. “Clearly, I don’t agree with your methods. But I don’t . . . I’m still on your side, Saxon. I breathe, you inhale, and we both go up in flames, remember?”
His features splinter.
With relief? Gratitude?
Then, voice raspy, he says, “There’s one more person I need to show you. Come.”
With my heart lodged in my throat, I follow.
Five steps.
An erratic pulse.
Sweaty palms.
Saxon pauses at the room beside Alfie Barker’s, his face turned away as he plugs a code into the panel on the wall. I don’t know what to make of him keeping this all a secret—some government organization that he’s never once hinted at—but I trust him.
I trust Saxon Priest with my whole heart.
The door cracks open.
“In here,” he tells me.
“Are we . . .” I lick my lips, suddenly nervous. If the other room held a supporter of Queen Margaret, God knows who this one houses. “Are we supposed to go in, just like that?”
His stare ensnares mine. “I have you, Isla. Go in.”
I listen, just as I did a week ago when he ordered me to get in his car. I obey, just as I did when he told me to slip into the confessional at Christ Church Spitalfields. I trust, just as I did after he saved me at The Octagon and brought me into his home like I belong with him.
Like I belong to him.
My steps are silent as I enter the room, and instantly, I note that it’s empty.
Completely.
Utterly.
Empty.
“I don’t under—”
A soft but still deafening click has me whipping around, mid-sentence.
Saxon peers back at me from the other side of the door, and this one—this glass isn’t single-sided. I can see him, clearly, and I can hear every damning word falling from his scarred lips as I stand, shocked to my core, and he levels me with a truth I don’t want to believe.
“Don’t breathe for the enemy, Isla. Don’t breathe for me.”
The enemy?
Heart beating so frantically that I hear nothing beyond the roar in my ears, I rush to the door. “Saxon, let me out.” I pound my fist on the glass, again and again and again. “There’s a misunderstanding. Whatever this is, it’s just a misunderstanding. Please, let me out. Please.”
“I’m a spy for the Crown, and you killed the king.” Green eyes spear me from behind the barrier separating us. “The only misunderstanding is that I didn’t know sooner or you’d be dead already.”
He steps away from the door.
Steps away from me.
“Saxon, let me go.” I smash my fist into the glass. “Saxon!”
And then the door goes opaque, a double-sided mirror no more, and I scream. I claw at the glass. I cry for mercy.